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Car park fine

I got a parking ticket today, for parking outside my own house ‘without displaying a valid parking permit’. Amusingly, the local council’s own website specifically states that all parking permits are now digital only and there’s no need to display one (indeed it’s not possible to do so).

I’ve obvs appealed against the ticket and will be interested to know why one was issued.
 
I expect they’ll just cancel the ticket and not explain why it was issued. I’d prefer a heated courtroom battle myself.
 
Joe Hutch said:
I expect they’ll just cancel the ticket and not explain why it was issued. I’d prefer a heated courtroom battle myself.
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Have you got a proper one, from the council? Or is it a made up one from a private firm? It's permit parking outside my house and a few months ago I got a ticket. I appealed it using the email option (which freezes the countdown) and they sent me a reply with the photos, which showed my permit in the window. They cancelled the fine. Silly, but I at least with the council you seem to get a fair appeal. The private firms on the other hand are a shower of bastards, pardon my French.
 
No, this is from the council. I got caught out last year because I forgot to renew the permit, which is why I made doubly sure to renew it this year.
 
This morning I received a notice from euro car parks asserting that I overstayed the 4H limit in my local Sainsbury's car park in early June. This is incorrect. I was there twice that day for short periods.

I am in the regular habit of buying a sandwich or having lunch at the café this store, leaving and coming back for a coffee in the late afternoon. I have done this innumerable times and there has not been a problem. There is no interdiction on parking notices on same-day return.

The photos in the notice are undoubtedly accurate. But this time the automatic system has missed that I exited and returned. I have no evidence that I did this but the real point is that no system is perfect and the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The photos do not prove I didn't exit and return.

I am going to do some shopping there now. I will first have a word with the manager as I shop at his store regularly. After that if needed I will see what to do based on some of the links in this thread and the advice.
 
This is where my Google Maps Timeline comes in handy.

I can show evidence that I was where I said I was, and everyone who knows me knows I don’t often stray far from my iPhone.
 
Will your bank statment show two different transactions? and possibly another one in a different location between the two?

Pete
 
Pete MB&D said:
Will your bank statment show two different transactions? and possibly another one in a different location between the two?
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Thanks, However, my bank statements don't show times. The PM coffee I took on the date in question is there on one CC (but the date only although it would have been about 15:30) and I know from some other records I bought a Sainsbury's "meal deal" there for lunch, almost certainly for cash. I can't (yet) find any evidence for CC purchases in between. And I don't have tracking enabled on anything I can think of.

However the point is really for them to prove I didn't exit and enter again rather than the other way round. Their photo evidence does not do that should this go to any proper forum.

The Sainsbury's store under-manager was very unhelpful. Similar from the Sainsbury's Careline. I do see the real store manager in the café regularly. I might see if he recognizes me and will be more useful.

I see from online research that "double dipping" speculative invoices (not fines) are quite common from ANPR-controlled car parks. I will read further about the successes reported and see what can be done. I have a draft letter to send. The £40 sum is not a big deal but I do very regularly visit the store twice a day.
 
John Phillips said:
The Sainsbury's store under-manager was very unhelpful. Similar from the Sainsbury's Careline
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our local Tesco doesn't own "their" carpark, and it is run by yet another 3rd party......, someone i work with had an issue, and Tesco didnt want to know.
 
I just hate this farming out of car parks and their charges. Decent businesses then claim, sometimes, that there’s nothing they can do to help, and so they lose an otherwise happy customer.
 
John Phillips said:
This morning I received a notice from euro car parks asserting that I overstayed the 4H limit in my local Sainsbury's car park in early June. This is incorrect. I was there twice that day for short periods.

I am in the regular habit of buying a sandwich or having lunch at the café this store, leaving and coming back for a coffee in the late afternoon. I have done this innumerable times and there has not been a problem. There is no interdiction on parking notices on same-day return.

The photos in the notice are undoubtedly accurate. But this time the automatic system has missed that I exited and returned. I have no evidence that I did this but the real point is that no system is perfect and the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The photos do not prove I didn't exit and return.

I am going to do some shopping there now. I will first have a word with the manager as I shop at his store regularly. After that if needed I will see what to do based on some of the links in this thread and the advice.
Click to expand...

I had the same from Aldi when our Polish crew went for breakfast, did a day's work and then back for dinner.

I think i ended up using Resolver or similar. This happens too often to be a mistake.

I did explain that if it came down to a court appearance i could muster 20 witnesses that the vehicle and driver were elsewhere for most of the day.
 
Tony Lockhart said:
Decent businesses then claim, sometimes, that there’s nothing they can do to help, and so they lose an otherwise happy customer.
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i think this is a calculated risk - lose the odd customer or pay 1000s for the carpark, and maintenance and staff......

our big Tesco has never owned the carpark - from memory the landowner did the deal with the carpark owner and Tesco when it was first built.
 
Of course it’s calculated. And I hate the slopey shoulders that the business you’re handing your money to adopt.
 
SteveG said:
A young lady from Dundee (which sounds like the start of a bad joke!) was bankrupted after listening to advice that MacDonalds couldn't do anything about her parking her car in their car-park every day when she went to work nearby
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I know this is bit of a belated response to this but I have only just clocked this thread.

We have a flat in town and the development has a car parking space for every flat with about 8 spare 'Visitor' spaces. As you cam imagine quite a few of the flats have more than vehicle and there is always competition for spaces.

When my wife was staying there with the boys pre-pandemic she noted that at least two vehicles would drive on to the development each weekday morning and the occupants, in this both female, would park their cars and then walk off the development leaving the cars there whilst they presumably went to work.

The factors had this Brough to their attention and they were able to determine that the vehicles concerned had no connection with the development but that they were powerless to do anything about it. On more than one occasion I had to 'restrain' my wife from parking our car millimetres off one of the offending cars bumpers.

On the one hand you can admire the audacity of the people doing this and on the other think less than positive thoughts about selfish car drivers!

Regards

Richard
 
John Phillips said:
Thanks, However, my bank statements don't show times. The PM coffee I took on the date in question is there on one CC (but the date only although it would have been about 15:30) and I know from some other records I bought a Sainsbury's "meal deal" there for lunch, almost certainly for cash. I can't (yet) find any evidence for CC purchases in between. And I don't have tracking enabled on anything I can think of.

However the point is really for them to prove I didn't exit and enter again rather than the other way round. Their photo evidence does not do that should this go to any proper forum.

The Sainsbury's store under-manager was very unhelpful. Similar from the Sainsbury's Careline. I do see the real store manager in the café regularly. I might see if he recognizes me and will be more useful.

I see from online research that "double dipping" speculative invoices (not fines) are quite common from ANPR-controlled car parks. I will read further about the successes reported and see what can be done. I have a draft letter to send. The £40 sum is not a big deal but I do very regularly visit the store twice a day.
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Just a small note of caution: might be worth checking the car park Ts & Cs to make sure there aren't rules about 'return prohibited within 'X' hours' or somesuch. I know that's common on metred parking spaces, or time-limited on-street parking.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Just a small note of caution: might be worth checking the car park Ts & Cs to make sure there aren't rules about 'return prohibited within 'X' hours' or somesuch. I know that's common on metred parking spaces, or time-limited on-street parking.
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A good thought. A larger Sainsbury's I use certainly does display a "no return on the same day" rule.

And one member of customer services staff suggested I might have contravened a "no return within 1 hour" rule. However I did check this before I started returning for PM coffee. I have a photo of this car park notice and it displays just one condition "parking limited to three hours" (actually not the "4H" I originally wrote) and no reference to any other Ts&Cs to look up. So I think probably not. And that wasn't what the notice complained of.

The car park notice - in very small print only readable from the photograph, not looking up from the car park - explains that the land is "the property and the responsibility of Sainsbury's" and managed by euro car parks. That gives me some leverage to complain to Sainsbury's (HO if needed) after the under-manager said they had nothing to do with it. Actually I know the restaurant staff there rather well. One in particular springs to mind to whom I think I might consider mentioning this to see what happens. But I don't want to compromise anyone for just £40 if this happens very rarely.
 
Richard Lines said:
I know this is bit of a belated response to this but I have only just clocked this thread.

We have a flat in town and the development has a car parking space for every flat with about 8 spare 'Visitor' spaces. As you cam imagine quite a few of the flats have more than vehicle and there is always competition for spaces.

When my wife was staying there with the boys pre-pandemic she noted that at least two vehicles would drive on to the development each weekday morning and the occupants, in this both female, would park their cars and then walk off the development leaving the cars there whilst they presumably went to work.

The factors had this Brough to their attention and they were able to determine that the vehicles concerned had no connection with the development but that they were powerless to do anything about it. On more than one occasion I had to 'restrain' my wife from parking our car millimetres off one of the offending cars bumpers.

On the one hand you can admire the audacity of the people doing this and on the other think less than positive thoughts about selfish car drivers!

Regards

Richard
Click to expand...
Of course something can be done.
My daughter’s flat car park is managed for them by a parking company. Park without a permit and you will be invoiced.
 
Bob,

Actually here north of the border it apparently isn't easy to enforce this. In fairness to the factors they have proposed erecting a barrier to control access but quite a few of the flats are owned by absentee landlords and they never get anywhere near the 60% vote required to change/ enforce such a move. Believe me we've pushed............

I was actually about to leave the flat one day and one of the said vehicles actually arrived on site. I decided I didn't need to get back home that quickly and actually followed the driver as they walked up College Street and and in to town. I can tell you the building in which they worked. I would like to point out that this isn't a regular practice on my behalf.......

What the factors can do and choose not to is enforce the one car per flat rule but even that involves privacy issues.......

Erecting video camera's has been proposed but again needs 60% owner support............

Regards

Richard
 
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